Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in West Jordan

Cafe Rio has a serious customer service problem. I called to place a take out order at the Jordan Landing restaurant in West Jordan this Monday evening. After 17 minutes on hold, a very stressed guy answers by saying “It’s gonna be an hour and a half, will that be okay?”

No. No, that’s NOT going to be “okay”. I asked about the long hold time and the ridiculous wait time for food. He explained that the take out que was slammed and they only had two people working the phones. He said it would be faster to come in as the line wasn’t too long. I told him it sounded like poor employee resource management. He agreed. I decided to drive to Cafe Rio. The line was not short. It was nearly to the door. Those in line looked irritated. I turned and walked out. I went to Costa Vida instead. Food was fantastic. There was no stress, no long line. It was busy but calm. I instantly felt better. One of their employees told me he used to work at that Cafe Rio and left because it was a chaotic stressful nightmare of poor management.

I have experienced this problem at Cafe Rio so many times, and I don’t think I’m the only one with these grievances. I just don’t think I’ll go back. When you call, the person on the take-out phone can barely hear you because it’s so bloody noisy in there. You’d think they would put the callers behind glass in a quiet area so they could actually hear the customer on the phone. Then you go to pick up the food and there’s a massive line. I have waited up to 25 minutes in the take-out line. Customers in line with me agreed that this was a terribly disorganized, understaffed operation. The employees NEVER look happy. They look angry and really stressed out.

The layout of the restaurant is not designed to accommodate the long take-out lines. It snakes through where people are eating. People don’t want you learing down at them while they’re trying to enjoy dinner. The number of customers is so massive, they need to redesign their entire restaurant. The kitchen areas need to be bigger, they need two food prep lines where the orders are assembled, and they need way more employees to handle the numbers.

The take-out call-in phone stations need to be behind glass in a quiet area so employees can hear the customers and get the orders right. And if it’s taking them 15+ minutes to answer the take-out line, staff up the phone banks!! Management needs to anticipate demand and be able to respond. Don’t tell me it’s going to take an hour and a half for a couple of burritos. Is that realistic customer service? Honestly.

The food is wonderful, if you can endure the agonizingly long wait times and stressful, noisy atmosphere. Eating in at Cafe Rio is not a relaxing experience. The noise! And just looking at the frustrated, impatient customers and employees stresses out the patrons who are eating. At least it does me. The ambiance is like a cattle call. There has to be a better way to keep the noise and lines and chaos of the ordering process separate from the dinning area.

Cafe Rio corporate won’t fix it because it’s not “cost effective.” They only focus on the food, not the customer experience or process in getting the food. To me, the ambiance and attitude and feeling of a restaurant is as important as the food itself. One without the other just doesn’t work for me. It’s a real negative.

I don’t know. I may be wrong. That’s...

I don’t typically leave a review but this most recent experience was by far the worst dining experience I have ever had and I ordered the food online to go.

First and foremost, when I show up 10 minutes after the online estimator said the food would be done then I expect to walk in, grab my food, and leave. But not only was the food not finished yet but it hadn’t even been started to be made. So I asked for a refund and to cancel my order and I would be on my way. This where things get very interesting. I am told that they can’t refund my money bc the order is closed. I asked why the order was closed when they haven’t even started it and I just get stared at. So I ask for a manager. Manager comes over and also refused to refund my money and said to call support/door dash. I hadn’t ordered through door dash. I ordered direct through their website. So come to find out the store was closing orders so that their “times” weren’t affected on their reports. Well this also effects the online ordering process bc when they close out an order it removes it from their queue. Which in turn compounds their online ordering process bc now anyone else behind me will receive incorrect quote times bc the store appears to be “caught up”. Well tell that to the dozen or so people that are all standing there waiting for their food and the food they do receive is incorrect. Like the guy just before me that didn’t get is side order of chips. And then they give him a partial amount that was crushed and tell him that they don’t have any more. Then there was the lady that was waiting for 30 minutes for her pies. And another lady who waited 25 minutes for her children’s quesadilla. And finally they give me mine (nearly an hour after the order was placed and 24 minutes past the due time) and it’s not made correctly and at this point I’m ignored even when trying to address employees. When I asked for contact numbers from the manager she refused to give them to me. So I brought my improperly made food home and discarded mine. Fortunately my wife’s and my toddlers food was complete (bc the toddler was also having a come apart bc she was hungry hence why we ordered online so it was supposed to be ready once we got to the store). Michelle at the support line was awesome and can’t say better things about her. I refuse to go back to this particular location and beings it’s closest to my home will likely choose different establishments to do business with instead of cafe rio. I would really encourage a regional manager or owner to reach out to...

Wow! I love Café Rio but the service at this location tonight was terrible. We entered the store at 8:21pm, with only 6 people in front of us. That is usually a great sign, and we should have been able to order quickly. But, today we did not pay for and receive our order until 8:52pm. The staff simply did not know what how to take care of the customer. Part of the problem was the area normally used for ‘to-go’ orders was closed down already. So the employees had to use the standard line to make those orders. But, there was confusion everywhere about who was supposed to be doing what. Several employees were wearing their ear buds, and weren’t listening to the customers or the other employees directions. Right in front of us, we saw the same employee make the same salad 3-times for a to-go order because he didn’t know that it was already done. Then he got frustrated and crumpled up the receipt and threw it. We stood at the order counter for at least 10 minutes watching ‘to-go’ orders try and get made, waiting for someone to look up and ask us for our order. When they finally did they didn’t know the difference between shredded chicken and grilled chicken, and mixed our small order (two people) up with the person in front of us. Luckily, we had plenty of time to watch the orders being made, and were able to help the employees keep them straight. It was a nightmare watching our food sit there, waiting to pay.  I am thankful to the cashier, who may have realized that things were out of sorts and gave us a free drink. I feel sorry for the poor Door Dash worker, who was waiting to pick up an order before we walked in, and was still waiting when we finally sat down 30 minutes later with our food. I love the Café Rio food, and will definitely continue to eat there, but I will not go back to this location. There was no sense of importance to the customers who entered the store. There were 7-8 employees working in sight, but one was trying to make orders. This person was giving preference over ‘to-go’ orders instead of the customers standing in line. Other employees were talking and laughing behind the grills, I assume because they were listening to something funny on their phones, because there was certainly nothing funny about standing in line for 30 minutes waiting for 5 orders to...